Sun-Day at the Beach

Yes, we did! We escaped the polar vortex at last! (If only for a day, because it is hitting this area starting late tonight).

We drove over to Padre Island and adjacent Mustang Island for a day at the beach and some very welcome sunshine.

We took a nice walk, then after lolling around at the beach for awhile, we went to a local Mexican restaurant for some fabulous fajitas and tacos, then headed back for the afternoon. We lucked out because no sooner had we arrived at the National Seashore visitor's center than they were loading a van for a guided birding tour. We enjoyed the information shared by our very capable volunteer hosts (who are from Wisconsin, but wintering in this area).

We saw some birds we had seen earlier in the day, but hadn't known the names of, as well as many more, including both brown and white pelicans, harriers, various plovers, sanderlings, terns, ring-billed gulls, and even sandhill cranes!

I didn't get photos of most of them, since we were mostly riding in the van, but here are a few that I did get earlier in the day that turned out pretty well:

Brown Pelican

Yellowlegs

Tern?

Willet with crab

Various shore birds

Willet

This is what you get when you can't really see your object on the camera's screen in the bright sunshine and the bird has already moved, but you see something, so you click anyway!